[Aztlan] "The Other Conquest"

[ECOLING at aol.com]

>From its reputation, I was much looking forward to seeing this film,
made in Mexico, released in only a few cities of the Southwestern USA.

It is in Spanish and in Nahua, with English subtitles and some
Spanish subtitles also during Nahua portions.

I had heard it presents the conquest from the point of view of an Aztec 
priest, 
maneuvering simultaneously to keep his own people in their traditions,
and to deal with the Spanish.

I got a copy from Amazon.com, and took it to the Wayeb meetings
of the European Mayanists, the first week of December in Geneva.
We had a showing of the film there.

There is a bit of what I had understood the film to be by reputation.
But it is more a study of the psychology of one Friar and one Aztec priest 
who is a captive in a monastery, supposedly being converted, but explicit
that the new religion can have his body, never his soul.   
Not much on the Aztec priest or the Nahua people as active agents 
successfully manipulating the Spanish within the limits of the kinds of 
power they had available to them.
No large and complex issues of social structure, no large scenes,
not much about the management of daily lives.

The film I had imagined still remains to be made, it is still a distant goal.
The audience for the showing in Geneva seemed to feel that
"The Other Conquest" still has quite a lot of stereotyping.   

One Mexican woman commented that it was like other films made by 
Mexican directors.   When I asked if she meant
a bit like Diego Rivera murals, the best analogy I could think of to what
she might be referring to, she affirmed that could be a good analogy.
Though it is not as complex or great as those murals.

I don't feel the need to see it again.   But the two main characters are
both sympathetic, and it is worth seeing once at least, to see what one
director has managed to do and has not managed to do.

It may be one of a very few films to feature the Nahua language so
extensively.

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington DC 20003
ecoling at aol.com
202-547-7683



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